I was wrong in my previous post when I said there weren’t any major upheavals in my life last year. There was one, and it happened at Christmas. It meant I had to make a few category adjustments here.

When we were giving out gifts, I noticed the name on the gift from my middle child wasn’t the name we’d been using for 31 years. I brought this up in front of the gathered family.

My child took a deep breath and announced that, yes, there was a name change because they–or I should say she–was transitioning, and had been for a couple of months. Moreover, she credited me with knowing her better than herself.

I don’t know how she could say that, really. We had one conversation about it a couple of years ago, when she was living as a gay man. She prefers skirts and dresses to pants. She loves to cook; she makes her own clothes and is fascinated by medieval tailoring. So, I asked her simply, “Are you trans?”

The answer then was a quite emphatic, “No.” And we dropped the subject.

Seriously, that was it. I guess it must have made her think.

I’m okay with this. Our kids are our kids and we love them, no matter what. It’s getting easier to think of our family as two daughters and one son instead of the reverse. My side of the family is okay with it; there are several LGBTQ+ folks among her generation. My husband is okay with it, too, He was a little sad to lose a namesake, but realizes that’s his ego talking. He uses her new name as often as he can. Fortunately, the nickname she’s had all her life still fits and we have permission to use it. (Our oldest is going by a different name, too, for entirely different reasons. We have permission to use her lifelong nickname, too.)

My husband’s side of the family? We haven’t told them. They don’t even know she’s LGBTQ+. They are mostly conservative Christians and we don’t think they’ll take it well.

So, that’s the big thing that required a few edits to my categories list on this site. It’ll make reading those old “as they were growing up” posts a bit confusing, but those are old. Life goes on. Change is a big part of it.